Fire Emblem: Awakening
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Page 12

Gregolution wrote:
Lol I tried one more level on normal and lost 3 characters in turn 2.

Think I'll do the same as you addyb. Save hard for replay

I think normal/classic is a great starter level. Yes at times you feel like you're untouchable but it only takes 1 wrong move and BANG that's 1/2/3 characters gone. I'd say I've lost around 6 altogether and that's from being totally stupid. You live and learn. This is my trial run for Hard

Mola_Ram wrote:
Yeah. I'm still on hard classic, but would not recommend it if you don't like restarting, or haven't played the series before.

Reinforcements are the biggest bitch. On hard they appear and attack in the same turn.

*moves towards boss*

*enemy turn, wyverns appear right behind us*

Game: SURPRISE MOTHERFUCKER, YOUR HEALER'S DEAD.

Me: sigh... *reset*

Yeah, when the game warns you that enemy reinforcements are imminent, remember that they can now appear and move, unlike previous games where they arrived at te end of the enemy turn.

Sometimes even weak troops that are levelled, like a level 15 healer etc, can have enough HP to survive one hit- you can create a formation where only one enemy can attack them, they'll be alright unless the enemy has throwing axes or javelins etc.

Enemy reinforcements that are the most dangeous are usually high- movement cavalry or fliers with physical attacks. What you can do is run our best DEF units back and have the weakest DEF units (pretty much everyone bar knights, cavaliers, paladins, lords etc) join them for protection for a few turns.

Even if you have lethal combat pairs of two high-level troops (my cavaliers are married and both awesome) its worth splitting them up, having the squishies join them and evac them out of there.

At least so far it's warned you- I remember in previous games wyverns or cavalry squadrons arriving out of nowhere!

It warns you, yes. It just doesn't warn you in any useful way ie. where the reinforcements are going to come from. It's not that they appear; it's that they appear and attack on the same turn.

Which, again, is fine. I played more carefully and just beat the chapter that I'd restarted.

I do actually like that you need to think about protecting people even when there aren't any enemies on the screen. It's just that I'm so used to the previous games that I don't expect certain things to happen. And that screws me on occasion.

Anyway, apart from the times where I get a little stupid, and apart from a rocky start where I didn't understand enough about the pairing up and such, Hard has been pretty smooth sailing. I haven't grinded much, but even then I have one or two characters that I'm pretty sure could just wreck entire maps by themselves.

If you look at the little sword and shield icons at the bottom left when you pair someone up, you can see the %age chance that the non-leading character will join in an attack or protect the leading character against an attack.

These also increase with support ratings. So, my Stahl joins around two thirds of my Sully's attacks.

As for increasing support, if units are compatible then it increases whenever they attack next to each other, attack while paired up, or defend each other while paired up. If the character is a healer, support increases if you heal someone next to you, or if you're paired up with an attacking unit.

Basically, if you see little hearts appear after their attack or defence, then you know that support is increasing.

@Mola_Ram thanks Mola. I'm only early on, but could you give me some non spoiler instances where it would be wise to pair them up? I can think of obvious ones like saving a unit who is near death; but any others?

If a unit is near death and they don't have a turn, you may be in trouble. Best bet is to either try to heal them, or bring in a unit that boosts their DEF or RES. When you choose 'pair up', you can see the specific benefits that the unit gets from the pairing before you commit.

Basically, I try to pair up units so that they address each others weaknesses. So, if you have a character (say, Vaike) with such horrible speed that he gets double attacked all the time, pair him up with a speedy swordsman. If you have a fragile character, pair them up with someone that has high Defence.

And also try to pair up characters with people that are in their support list. Get more benefit that way.

Anyway, those are just the things that I do. You'll get a feel for it soon though.

The enemy always prioritises killing your units and doing the most damage- if in doubt don't attack on your turn, just counter on the enemy turn to reduce the damage weaker units take.

Keep the grid showing which squares are safe from enemy attack up- and move your weaker units last, as the grid may change as you move your own heavy units and open up potential enemy attack pathways.

Enemy troops have skills just like yours- check out their abilities and critical chance before attacking with anyone. In particular, watch out for enemy troops that have the skill 'pass' as it lets them move through your lines.

Experiment with all the classes. To start with, the cavaliers are probably the most balanced, but don't neglect slow units (like foot knights) or weak but fast offensive units ( like peg knights) as they all have thier place- foot knights come into their own on the defensive, and peg knights for hunting down enemy thieves, mages, airdropping your best units into good places or evac-ing wounded ones.

You'll be given a lot of troops but don't worry too much if they die- anyone can reclass to pretty much anything, if you lose a healer you can always reclass somebody else to be one instead. If you are taking heavy losses in story missions, you are probably approaching the mission in the wrong way, so don't be afraid to restart a mission if it looks like winning is going to cost you several troops.

Of course, you could always play with permadeath off, so it's more like other SRPGs where characters that die are merely knocked out, it's up to you, but the problem with that is it doesn't teach you how to play fire emblem well, I think, which might leave you in real trouble later on.

Learn to keep an eye on the grid to keep weak units out of combat, and remember that more xp comes from kills- let weak units get kills to level them up faster. Get yr head around the 'pairing' system too, as its got lots of offensive and defensive tactics tied to it.

The enemy is pretty good at going to pick off weaker units, but it's still not very good at deciding when it's best to not attack at all. Yeah, it's always been that way, but it would be extra challenging if enemies didn't just line up to get slaughtered by your nigh-invincible Great Knight at a chokepoint.

Bit confused about equipment... How do you make money?
How do you repair items?
What does the little green or red arrow next to items mean? Is that how it will effect stats if equipped and if so which ones?

@Gregolution I make money by using reeking boxes. Enemies on the maps with these drop bullions that sell for money.

You can't repair items. Once they break you need to buy another weapon. Also look at what units can use multiple weapons, as that can give you an advantage.

The little arrows mean if that weapon is more effective at dealing damage to the enemies weapon. Its like a rock paper scissors system. It explains all this in the guide menu option if you press x on the map or battle screen (I think?)

What you can do is use 'restock' to combine battered items- e.g. If your character has an iron sword with 3 uses left, 'restock' will top it up to 40 with iron swords from the convoy.

Forged weapons are for helping weak units inflict damage for xp, or strong units deal with bosses- if you use them ll the time it'll get expensive!

Rarer or expensive items, like those you forge, killing edge items, named weapons (Eireka's rapier etc) are worth keeping for dealing with tough enemies. Get used to equipping everyone with a cheap weapon for general use, a ranged weapon if possible (hand axe/javelin/wind edge or magic) and a decent one for tough fights. Always cycle through your weapons when attacking and choose the one that gets the best results for the minimal cost, and particularly ranged weapons for light units that can't afford to be hit back. Also remember that lighter weapons hit easier, so if your 'to hit' chance is too low, try dropping down to an iron or bronze weapon.

Take your time clicking on the enemy skills and weapons on the pre-fight screen, it'll become second nature in no time!

For money, you can sell pretty much anything, so if you desperately need items for your A-team, sell the equipment of the people you don't use, or consider fighting the Risen or tackling the DLC, both of which are quite lucrative.

Anyone struggling to pick this game up and you dont mind a digital copy from the estore.
Why not try buying from Game online.
You can buy the game for £32.99 for a physical copy or digital eshop code( same price).
Just buy download version and they email the code within 5 mins.
Job done and no more hunting for this elusive game on the highstreet.

Actually managed to pick this up on Saturday
It's been a while since I played the GBA one. I'm playing on Normal/Classic and already had to reset twice on chapter 3: A stupid mistake on both accounts - but it's all coming back to me now!
I managed to finish the GBA one without loosing anyone except the one you can't save and I certainly won't loose anyone now

I'm playing on hard/classic and it's awesome. I've already had to form up in a couple of small defensive circles just to protect everyone, but the difficulty comes from enemy troops rather than bosses- that's great as it means there's loads of xp around too.

Bought a couple of the DLC maps too- I think it's really well done, the DLC area is portioned off at the lowest part of the map, and once it's introduced they don't beg you for money. It leaves me far happier at buying the odd map, and combined with the side stories and the risen appearing means I usually have 3-4 options of what map to tackle next. As far as I'm concerned its the best game on the system.

Yes, go to 'view map' before you fight- run the cursor over enemy troops to see their items, weaknesses and level etc. You can then go backwards and go back to the map if you don't like the look of it.

Enemy level is random but fairly standard across the map, so some encounters are to give your best people a challenge, and some to give your weakest troops easy people to fight- I spot the occassional level 5 group and send in Donnel and the rest of the rookies!

So I hear a lot of talk in this thread about strategies and characters as battle units, but not much about romances, characters and dialogue. Is it underwhelming? Is the translation any good (I'm aware of the issues, its just Nintendo's translations are said to be good)? Or do people just enjoy the gameplay more than the story elements?

In seriousness, though, the best thing about the characters is the way you get to know them. The barracks is absolutely great for this.

Although I am getting a bit tired of the knight guy constantly going on about how inconspicuous he is. Yes yes, you're huge and yet somehow go unnoticed, it stopped being funny the dozenth time you said it.

And the relationship between the dragon girl and the thief (garrus, I think) is a teensy bit disturbing. Yes, she's old, but she still looks like a little girl.

What's this about marriage also? I'm on chapter 19 and I've not had a mention of marriage. Only chrom and sully [\spoiler]

And it does get ruddy hard on the later chapters doesn't it??! Frederick is not mr invincible anymore that's for sure just defeated walhart but I'm guessing its not the first time, and I lost 3 or 4 people. Barely survived!